


Of Sheep Blankets and Hester

by ScotlandEvander



Series: Don't Ever Change [12]
Category: Benedict Cumberbatch - Fandom, British Actor RPF, Sherlock (TV) RPF
Genre: Angst, BBC Sherlock - Freeform, Confessions, F/M, Friendship/Love, Gen, POV Alternating, POV Female Character, POV First Person, POV Male Character, POV Multiple, Relationship Problems, Sherlock set, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-20
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2017-12-15 15:23:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/851086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScotlandEvander/pseuds/ScotlandEvander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I know it’s wrong now. It took me five years, but…I’m Hester. Oh my fracking god, I’m fracking Hester!”</p>
<p>Door pulls at her hair and makes eye contact with me for the first time since she began talking. She looks wild, crazed and alive. Oh, god, does she look alive. It’s like she’s just had the Eureka moment she’s been looking for since she got here. </p>
<p>“I’m Hester…Oh, god, I’m Hester, Jason is the old dude and…well, I don’t have a Freddie. So, I guess it’s not…but, no. I am like Hester, only without a Freddie.” </p>
<p>I’ve no idea what the hell she’s talking about. The only Hester I can think of is from A Scarlett Letter and there was no Freddie in that story if my memory is correct.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Sheep Blankets and Hester

**Author's Note:**

> The lyrics Door sings are “Dying Thoughts of an Atheist” by Muse, written by Matt Bellamy

****

OoOoOoOoOoO

_Dorothea_

I’ve never been to Wales but I knew this guy who studied abroad here. Mostly because his girlfriend was English and Wales was the closest program he could find…or something. But, he said it rained a lot. It was pretty, but depressing. Because it rained a lot. 

Having gone to Wales the year before I went to London, he warned me about the rain and sounded so bitter I thought it’d be worse than that time my family went on vacation to Vancouver and it rained the entire time we were there. 

It’s sunny.

I am sitting on a curb on a Cardiff street dressed to look like somewhere in London and it’s sunny. The sky is a wonderful shade of blue and filled with warm, sunny sunshine. 

I’m a wordsmith. I need another word for sunny. 

“So, you’re Cricket. I’m Mark.”

I look up and find a casually dressed Mark Gatiss with a red sweatshirt tied around his waist and huge earphones around his neck. 

“Ohmygod. It’s you!” 

Mark Gatiss quirks his eyebrows skyward. I catapult myself to my feet. I’m not sure if I ought to hug this man, simply shake his hand or punch him because it’s all his fault my life exploded in my face in a confusing blur of cotton and leather. (Well, it’s also a combination of my own fault, Tom’s and Pamela’s but whatever.) 

“It is me,” he agrees and solves the problem for me by extending his hand. 

No hugging or punching. Got it.

“I’ve been quite anxious to meet the woman who made penguins fall out of Sherlock’s head.”

Laughter bubbles out of me as I take his hand and shake it. I’m smiling like an idiot, but I don’t truly care any longer. 

It’s Mark Gatiss! He tweeted at me! Tom Hiddleston hasn’t even tweeted at me, but Mark Gatiss has! 

OMG!

I no longer want to punch him, thank god, but now I kinda wanna hug him. 

“It’s sunny,” I dumbly state for some unknown reason as I drop his hand. 

Mark Gatiss cocks his head to the side and appears amused. “True. We lucked out on the weather. How are you enjoying the set? Is it everything you dreamed of?”

“There’s a lot of standing around, but I knew that was going to happen,” I say, trying not to rock back and forth on my feet. I’d like to appear like a normal person. 

Oh, what the frack. I can’t be normal. I’m the opposite of normal. 

“Your friend told you? Pamela, correct?”

“Yeah, that’s her name. She’s dating Tom Hiddleston now. This cannot be my life. I have to be dreaming. You’re Mark Gatiss!” I cry, now bouncing up and down in front of him. 

He gives me an amused smile. “True. I’m glad she got over her…stage fright in front of Tom, as adorable as it was.”

He gives me that weird creepy Mycroft smile and I about faint. 

“I forgot him at the airport when he came to visit her. I left him there for two hours,” I babble. “Then my barkapotmous dog barked at him constantly for like five hours.”

Mark chuckles. “Yes, I read about that on your blog. I found it quite funny. You’ve got a talent for finding the jocosity in the everyday.” 

I flush. “I do?”

“Of course you do. If you’d fail to impress me, I wouldn’t have turned your life upside down,” he offers, a smirk on his lips. “How is the handbag business?”

“Closed for the moment while I’m here,” I admit. “But, between your boost and Tom carrying that horrid orange bag…I can’t exactly complain about having no sales.”

I chuckle a bit uneasily, remembering what exactly awaits me back home. 

“I’ve always wanted to visit a working set,” I say suddenly to change the subject. “I’ve always been totally fascinated with show business. There’s no business like show business.” 

“No business I know,” Mark finishes, smirk melting into an actual grin. 

“Are you two about to break into song? If so, wait till I get my mobile.”

“OMG! It’s Benedict Cumberbatch!” I shirk, clapping my hands together, jumping up and down like a total goofball.  

“Where?” Ben asks, looking around. 

Mark shakes his head.

“Can I have my script, please, ma’am?” Ben asks, holding out his hands and making some big eyes at me. He looks an adorable little kids suddenly, not the thirty-six year old adult he is (physically, sometimes he acts like the kid he looks like, which is okay by me as it’s fun). 

I’ve become his personal PA for some reason. Instead of wandering the streets trying to figure out my life, I’ve been standing around the set for the past few days holding Ben’s things. I’m sure they hired someone to do this job, yet that someone is mysteriously absent.

I open the large black Cricket Heidi satchel I’ve slung over my shoulder and hand Ben his script, then pull out a pair of sunglasses. Ben takes the script, tucks it under his arm, and grabs the shades. He’s put them on his face before I realize he’s just put mine on. 

Oops.

Ben sits down on the curb and gazes through the sunglasses with a confused look on his face. He looks at me and frowns. 

“You stole my sunglasses.”

“Of course I did. Yours cost at least two hundred dollars and mine were five bucks from Old Navy,” I tell him happily. 

“Mine are much too large for you.”

“And yet mine fit you. Go figure?”

Gatiss says something about talking to someone who is likely important and leaves Ben to go over the script. I watch the man who tortures me almost as much as Steven Moffat with his plots, writing and crazy ideas walk away before sinking back down on the curb next to Ben. 

“What are you filming in there?”

“Spoilers,” he says without looking up. “Pencil, please?”

I hand him a pencil.

“Don’t you have an assistant on this set?”

Ben makes some sort of noise in his throat, totally channeling the outside world out to write down whatever notes he needs written down for whatever he’d doing. I plunk my chin into the palm of my hand and stare at the madness around me. 

It is seriously corybantic around here— just as I always imagined a set would be for a show like _Sherlock_. I kinda love it here. 

“Ben!” someone calls. 

Ben’s head snaps up. 

“Two minutes.”

Ben nods, quickly finishing up his notations before he slams the script shut and hands it back to me. He removes my sunglasses and hands those to me as well. There is a thick layer of stage makeup on the frame wherever it touched Ben’s face. I clean it off with fingers before shoving the cheap sunnies into my bag. Ben gracefully stands and heads off. I continue to sit on the curb, ignored by the entire crew. 

I don’t honestly mind being ignored. 

I don’t mind sitting out here in the nicely warm sunshine. 

Seriously.

Would I rather be sitting in a nice cafe lost inside my own head while nursing a cup of tea? Sure. But, I did that for a whole week in London while Ben was here filming in Cardiff and now it seems like everyone around me excepts me to actually do something to earn my keep. Since I crashed the press junket, I haven’t been left to my own devices. I’ve become Ben’s shadow and while that’s totally cool, being Ben’s shadow is exhausting. 

I’m not sure why Ben’s not keeling over dead. More than likely because he loves what he’s doing. 

I’ve been utterly fascinated by the whole world of entertainment since I was eight and read some book about a child star whose career ended because she was suddenly no longer “cute.” I proceeded to consume any books about Hollywood the library had to offer. Some were kind of…well, stupid and painted the whole world in shades of gold and silver. Some were brutal and painted the whole world in shades of grey and red. But, I still loved the world. 

And here I am. I’m sitting on the side of the road on the show business side of the barrier. The normal folk are all on the other side, excited and snapping photos a mile a minute. I study them behind Ben’s Wayfayer Ray-Bans, watching as someone calls for quiet on the set. An unnatural hush falls over the entire street, even though they’re filming inside a pub and likely would need ambient noise from the street. Or not. I watch the extras walk pass the windows of the pub, aiming to look random and unnoticeable while they film the scene inside. I know it’s not random or natural, as they’ve walked the same paths with each take.  

As the guy in the white shirts comes to a stop just out of the shot for the millionth time, it hits me like a ton of bricks.

1\. I’m wearing Ray-Bans that belong to Benedict Cumberbatch that he handed me to hold and I stole.

2\. I have a script for season three of _Sherlock_ in my purse. Technically, I could take it out and read it. I could go off and tell the whole world what happens as I’ve never signed a contract or anything that prevents me from spreading spoilers all over the world. 

(I’m not going to. I like being surprised. It’s part of the reason why I almost hate the internet. Things always get ruined.) 

3\. I’ve got Benedict Cumberbatch’s cell phone. (He’s got an iPhone just like me, only his is an iPhone 4 and not a 5 like mine.)

I could go through his phone.

Well, if I can figure out his passcode. He already figured out mine. I’m not sure how, as even Jason never figured it out and Jason should _know_ me well enough to know why I’d choose that code.

He always has to ask if he wants into my phone.

Ben never asked me the code. He took the phone, punched the code in, and tisked me. 

I stare across the street blankly.

I’m friends with Benedict Cumberbatch.

Also, I’m friends with Tom Hiddleston.

I stayed at his flat for almost a whole week.

I’ve met the entire cast of _Star Trek: Into Darkness._

And I’ve just met Mark Gatiss.

I think my mind just exploded.  

OoOoOoOoOoO

* * *

OoOoOoOoOoO

_Benedict_

 Karon has emailed me the full schedule for my upcoming trip to New York. My time has been scheduled down to the minute whilst I’m in New York. It’s almost comical when I stare at what Karon has sent me, as is it humanly possible to stick to that sort of schedule after a flight from London? 

“URG! Did my clothes grow?”

I’m not sure why, but Door exploded clothing all over my room instead of her own. I’m not even sure how she managed to get all of it into my room.

Door has yet to talk to me about anything that happened before her arrival in London. She admitted to Tom she ran away, but has said nothing to me on the topic. Though, now that I think about it, I’ve managed to keep us both so damn busy, we haven’t talked about anything. I believe  she’s spent more time talking to the lady who does my hair on set than me. 

“Door?”

No response.

“Door,” I try again to get her attention. She’s too busy trying to cram a boot into her suitcase to pay me any attention. “Dorothea.”

Her head snaps up. 

“I believe we need to talk?”

“Talk?”

“Yes, about why you’re here.”

“Your room is bigger than mine.”

“No, here as in the United Kingdom. Aren’t you supposed to be moving to Del Rio?”

She looks away and goes back to trying to pack her bag. The boot refuses to go where she wants it, so she throws it over her shoulder. She picks up a pink blanket, turning it over till she finds a corner that has something stitched on it. Her face turns contemplative.

“I had a boyfriend when I lived in London,” she says quietly, still gazing at the blanket. “I…I’d never fallen in love for real before I met him.”

I sit down, feeling this is going to be a long, slightly painful story. 

“He was from New Zealand, an art student studying at Goldsmith’s. He was doing a semester abroad, not a full year as I was, but…” Door trails off, still stroking the stitching in the corner of the blanket. “I’d just gotten out of a bad relationship and was like, ‘Let’s try a fling! I’m not Rory Gilmore!’ So, we hung out, started…well, we met, we kissed, we slept together, we fell in love, we parted ways.”

She chuckles, draping the blanket across her lap. Door studies the thing as if it holds answers to questions she’s not asked. She flattens it out, letting the edge she’d kept hidden show. There was a blue and white sheep embroidered in the corner. 

It is obviously a baby blanket. 

Something in my heart sinks. 

“I gave him a blanket for Christmas because I didn’t know what to get him, but he said he liked meaningful gifts,” Door says softly, looking off to the right. “So, I gave him the blanket I used to sleep with, as I’ve always needed something, anything really, wrapped around my finger.”

This was not where I thought this story was heading.

She wraps a bit of the blanket around her finger and holds it up for me to see. She cocks her head to the side, her hair cascading over her shoulder. 

“I like things that are soft and compact. While I was in London, I had this napkin sized blanket thing my mom had given me for Christmas after she’d thrown out my actual baby blanket— which wasn’t a blanket but mostly a series of knots that was formerly a blanket. It was so fragile, I’d left it behind when I’d gone off to start my sophomore year of college. Numerous times throughout my teenage life, I’d tried to sleep without aid of the baby blanket and always failed.” She snorts. “One time my dad had to FedEx it to me when I was visiting my grandma downstate. Anyways, I think I made it about two weeks before the lack of sleep got to me and I emailed my mom to mail it to me and she told me she’d chucked it.”

“She did?” I ask, shocked. Mums were the sentimental ones, saving things like that. I know my Mum had saved things like that, hoarded away for the grandkids she fails to have. 

“Yeah. My mom likes to throw things out,” Door snorts. “Anyways, that Christmas she gave me a this yellow, fleece handkerchief thing. It was lined with satin and had a loop and everything. Later she told me, she realized why I needed an extra blanket to sleep with, hence why she got the blanket with a loop.”

“Well, that was kind of her.”

Door chortles, shaking her head. More hair falls forward, hiding her face from me. I cast my eyes down to her lap and watch her hands fiddle with the blanket. 

“So, I had this micro-sized blanket. I didn’t like it, but I slept with it because I needed it.” 

She knots her fingers in the soft pink blanket, refusing to meet my eyes. 

“Then I met _him_ ,” Door quietly says. “I found I didn’t need the square yellow fleece to fall asleep after a bit, as I had him to wrap my finger around.”

She interlocks her fingers together, as if to illustrate to me they held hands while sleeping. My stomach takes a holiday and something coils within my being I am not going to analyze. 

“I bought this blanket because I was freezing,” Door says, looking at the pink thing in her lap. She holds it up, hiding her face. I study it as she continues to talking. “The room I lived in was cold because I had to keep the window open to prevent it from getting too hot after they turned the heater on. I didn’t want to spend a lot and this thing was soft. And it had a sheep on it, which at the time was important for some reason.” 

The blanket has clearly been used well in the time she’s had it. It’s an odd shaped blanket, rectangular and not square and the color on it is quite shabby. Back in its early life, I would hazard it was a vivid shade of light pink. 

“Anyways, I never used it except to keep me warm around the room till he left and went back to New Zealand,” Door quietly admits, lowering the blanket back to her lap. “Since then, I’ve slept every night with this thing.”

She wads the blanket up in her lap, clutching it as a lifeline. 

“Jason won’t hold my hand,” Door says. “I mean, he will hold it if I make him, but he doesn’t hold me at night when we sleep. It gets too hot. We’ve never…well, we don’t cuddle. It’s just…weird. So, I’ve always needed this blanket. Jason occasionally mocks me because I drag it around, hence the dirtiness…”

She looks troubled and it’s taking everything in me not to rush across the room and crush her to me. 

“I love Jason differently,” Door quietly says, staring at the floor with a blank look of mild shock on her face. “I’ve always known this. It wasn’t…I knew it would be different, but there was always something I missed with Jason. I always told myself I was being stupid, trying to compare the two very different people. And it wasn’t fair to Jason to compare him to Chris.”

She lets out a deep breath.

Chris. Of course his name was Chris. Simple, common and generic. 

“I was the one who wanted to get married, I was the one who pushed us through the motions, ignored that nagging voice in my head that kept telling me something was off,” Door says, then bites her lower lip. “One of my friends in high school said that if you could sit in silence with a guy and be comfortable, he was right for you.”

Door shakes her head, wadding the blanket up in her lap till it is a tight, compact ball.

“I always feel the need to fill the silence with Jason— I always have. Sometimes I start to babble, sometimes I don’t say anything and just sit there uncomfortably. I thought…I don’t know what I thought. I’m not making any sense. I know I loved Jason, I know there will be a little bit of me that always will, but…I’m hurt, I’m mad and I honestly don’t care if I see him again.

“I never understood why people were so upset when their husbands left on trips or deployments. I was fine on my own. Mostly. I might have starved a few times, but for the most part I can be alone. I’d rather be alone sometimes.”

She’s quiet for a moment, wearing a hard expression on her face. 

“The problem with Jason and I is that we do work. We can operate flawlessly together. We’re great roommates who occasionally have okay sex,” Door announces.

For the first time since she began speaking, I’m glad she’s not looking at me.

“I know it’s wrong now. It took me five years, but…I’m Hester. Oh my fracking god, I’m fracking Hester!”

Door pulls at her hair and makes eye contact with me for the first time since she began talking. She looks wild, crazed and alive. Oh, god, does she look alive. It’s like she’s just had the Eureka moment she’s been looking for since she got here. 

“I’m Hester…Oh, god, I’m Hester, Jason is the old dude and…well, I don’t have a Freddie. So, I guess it’s not…but, no. I am like Hester, only without a Freddie.” 

I’ve no idea what the hell she’s talking about. The only Hester I can think of is from _A Scarlett Letter_ and there was no Freddie in that story if my memory is correct. Wait a second…

“Are you talking about that movie Tom made with Rachel Weisz?” I inquire, staring at her in confusion. 

“Of course I am! What Hester did you think I was comparing myself to?” Door says, looking at me like I’m batty. 

She pushes herself to her feet and shoves the pink blanket into the case on the floor. Unlike the boot, it stays.  

“Oh god, it makes sense. Passion! Jason and I lack passion!” Door shouts at me, yanking at her hair again. “I mean, it’s not perfect comparison, but…oh.”

Her whole face falls, she pales and looks as if the life was just sucked out of her by a Wraith. 

“What? Door, what’s wrong?” I ask, slowly getting to my feet. 

“Jason cheated on me with Kirsten,” Door says, looking like she swallowed a lemon. “Oh god, Pamela was right. I’m a total moron. What the frack is wrong with me?”

Door storms out of my room, slamming the door behind her. I follow, only to see her vanish around the corner heading for her own room. I hurry down the hallway after her, catching up with her before she gets to her own room. I grab her arm, turning her to face me.

“Why do you think Kirsten and Jason are having an affair?”

“I don’t know. I’m not even sure if that’s the case, but it makes sense. They both vanish off together all the time, Jason always wants to visit Dan, and…and…Pamela pointed it out like four years ago when she finally met Kirsten. We made a lot of trips to San Antonio to visit Dan and his family, even sometimes when Dan wasn’t there. Jason claimed it was because he liked it and hated Del Rio, but seriously? And…he was always fast to hop on trips that would dump him in the South, places that were within easy reach of…oh god, I am an utter moron.”

She crumples. I grab her before she hits the ground, but her momentum makes us both crash to the floor. 

“Shouldn’t you speak to Jason about this instead of simply jumping to conclusions?”

Door looks up at me with lost eyes. She gives a painful laugh and sings softly, “ _And it scares the hell out of me that the end is all I can see._ ” 

Door looks at the ground, but does not push me away. We stay in our awkward position on the floor of the hotel for five minutes before she breaks and starts to cry in my arms. 

OoOoOoOoOoO

* * *

OoOoOoOoOoO

_Dorothea_

I left confused.

I left wishing to hide, run away and forget.

I left wishing for things to magically fix themselves while I was tramping through the streets of London, the city I where I first fell in love. 

I came back broken.

I came back knowing I was done.

I returned to reality and it sucked.

My father warned me this might happen to me if I didn’t marry Jason and simply followed him around while he learned to fly planes. 

So, I married him and it still happened. 

I have no job. I have no income. I have no home. I have a lot of junk but it’s in San Antonio and Del Rio, Texas. 

I am in Chicago (well, really Villa Park) and I don’t know what to do. There are in fact, some things your mother cannot fix and tragically a broken marriage is one of them. I almost wish I was heart broken, as I know that is easily fixed in time.

Or I thought it was…did I ever mend my broken heart after Chris? (Gosh, there are a lot of people named Chris in the world.) 

I’m not broken hearted. I’m…blank. A white, blank page of nothingness. People mistake it for being broken hearted because my husband is having an affair with a blonde bombshell and didn’t even have the guts to tell me. 

Jason showed up at Pamela’s hotel room with the belongings I’d left behind at the apartment and the dog. He had Kirsten with him and Pamela took one look at her smug face and kind of pulled a Mount Vesuvius on the pair. Pamela told me Jason was embarrassed, but at the same time he stated I’d understand.

I do.

It’s horrible.

Jason fell in love with someone who wasn’t me.

It happens. They make movies, TV shows and write books about this kind of thing. 

It happens, people. 

And, guess what? It happened to me. 

I think I’m in shock.

At least I’ve got a blanket. It might be pink and have a sheep in one corner, but it’s still a blanket. And I’m wrapped in it because I’m in shock. 

I should have gone to New York with Ben. Why didn’t I? I could have. I didn’t have to come back home to my parents— where I did not cry and fall apart in my mom’s arms. No, I did that in Ben’s arms on the floor of a hotel in Cardiff. (Of course, where else would I fall apart? I had to pick a public place and a celebrity! Duh!) 

I ought to figure out what I’m doing. I have to…start over. 

Oh, god. I have to find a real freaking job.

Or…I’ve got my mom now. I’m in Chicago. All I gotta do is talk my brother into driving with me down to get my stuff and Basil the Furry Menace and I can start my purse business back up with the aid of my mother. I’m still getting requests and orders. And my dad is web savvy…

I drop the blanket. I’ve got work to do. 

OoOoOoOoOoO

* * *

OoOoOoOoOoO

_Benedict_

It’s a few days since Door left. She opted to go straight to Chicago rather than come with me to New York. I figured it was for the best, but after I arrived in New York, I got a call from Tom who told me an irate Pamela had phoned him to inform him her fears had been correct.

This made me mad, worried, concerned, and a bit pleased, which made me somewhat want to punch myself in the nose.

I slog through my commitments, using jet lag as an excuse when I come across as batty. I don’t want to fly back to London tonight, but I’ve got filming to do for _Sherlock_ and we’re on a tight schedule. So, back across the pond I go.

“Uh, Benedict?” 

I snap my head up, scratching behind my ear. I give the man interviewing me, the guy from MTV I actually like, a sheepish smile. He looks behind him and makes a motion with his hand to cut the camera. He looks back at me once the camera is shut off. 

“Jet lag,” I remind him, chuckling.

I’m an actor. I can do this. 

The guy levels me a look and clearly I cannot act like nothing is wrong. 

“I think it’s something more than jet lag,” he says. He studies me a moment longer before he says, “Whatever it is, don’t let it get away.” 

And he thanks me for my time and the camera behind him turns back on. I head to the next reporter on the red carpet Karon wishes I speak to. 

* * *

A brilliant idea occurs to me after I’ve been on the plane for two hours. The airplane has internet, so I log on and pray to the higher powers Door is on Skype. 

She is. 

**CricketHeidi: Hey, aren’t you supposed to be on a plane?**

**747t38b2C112: Yes. I am on a plane.**

**CricketHeidi: I’m on a muthafracking plane!**

I grin. She’s gotten her sense of humor back. Last time I managed to speak with her, she sounded like a zombie. 

**CricketHeidi: I am on a mission. I’ve spoken to my parents and since I’m currently pathetic to them, they’ve agreed to aid me in almost anything except a start up loan.**

**747t38b2C112: Start up loan?**  

**CricketHeidi: Seriously going into business for myself.**

Ah, seems we’re on the same wavelength.

**CricketHeidi: I’m kind of leery about getting a loan, but my dad’s like going all businessy on my butt and wants me to get a business model together and figure out pricing figures and all this other stuff I’ve pretty much ignored since I opened Cricket Heidi four years ago. So, I’m doing that, but I have this sinking feeling no banks going to loan me any money.**

**747t38b2C112: Do you have good credit?**

I don’t want her to get an actual loan, because that would defeat what I want to do to help her out. I’m glad she’s leery. 

**CricketHeidi: Of course I do. But, I’m not exactly stellar here. I’ve got no money to my own name really. And I’m an idiot.**

**747t38b2C112: No, you’re not.**

**CricketHeidi: Yeah, I kind of am. I don’t know anything about business running, but I freak out each time I think about getting a real job and being an office drone. So, for now I’m setting up a website.**

**747t38b2C112: How can I help?**

The time stretches out before she replies.

**CricketHeidi: I don’t know.**

**747t38b2C112: I could give you a start up loan.**

**CricketHeidi: What? No.**

**747t38b2C112: Yes, I could. It’d be a good investment. You’ve got talent— even if you like overly bright colors and are famous for an ugly, brilliantly orange tote bag.**

**CricketHeidi: I can’t ask you for money.**

**747t38b2C112: You didn’t. I offered.**

**CricketHeidi: No. You don’t lend friends money.**

I sigh, raking a hand through my hair. 

**747t38b2C112: Fine. I’ll be your business partner. You’ll have to rename your label.**

I’m not serious about the last thing, but if it’ll get her to let me help her…maybe I ought to have phoned her for this conversation? 

**CricketHeidi: Benedict Cumberbatch, what are you talking about?**

**747t38b2C112: Celebrities do it all the time. They have their own fashion lines, creates stinky perfumes, put their names on shoes. I’m going to put my name on a bag.**

**CricketHeidi: I’d have to pay you.**

**747t38b2C112: No. We’ll do this together. Joint venture.**

I can picture the look she’s giving me and I wait for her to continue to argue with me. Instead my phone rings. 

“Shite,” I mutter trying to silence the phone before I get accused of leaving my mobile on. She’s calling me through Skype, so it’s not an actual phone call. I answer it in a whisper as to not awake my fellow passengers who are sleeping. “Hello?”

“What are you suggesting, Benedict?” she asks. “Why are you doing this?  Because you feel sorry for me?”

“No. As I stated, it’d be a good investment. Granted, we’ll have to pay Tom for his involvement if you wish to use him again for the ads,” I try to joke. She doesn’t laugh, so I go on. “Door, I think we ought to go this together.”

“Why?”

“I believe in you and wish to support you,” I offer. “And this is your passion, your dream.”

She snorts.

“Well, you’re good at it and you’ve got the talent to make it work. If you’re remaining in Chicago, then you can have your mum help you with the orders or hire someone— if you let me invest in your business with you.” 

It feels so bizarre to be having this conversation with her while I’m speeding towards London and she’s back at her parent’s house in Villa Park, Illinois. 

“We’d be partners?” she finally asks. 

“Yes.”

“And I’d have to relaunch my label with a new name?”

“Yes, well, if you want, you don’t have to,” I amend. 

“Cricket and Ben. Benedict and Cricket. Cricket Heidi and Ben. No, that totally sucks.”

She mutters a few more name suggestions, likely writing them down before crossing them out.

“How about Benedict and Door?” I throw out there. 

She’s silent for a long beat. “But, I’m known as Cricket Heidi. I’ve built a presence as that name.”

“You can remain Cricket. The Benedict and Door label will be designed by Cricket Heidi.”

“Oh, get rid of Cricket Heidi Deigns, replace it with Benedict and Door— oh, I think I like that. I’m seeing a bright orange door in my future. Or blue. Purple. I like purple.”

I smile as she continues to mutter colors at me till suddenly an image pops up on my screen.

“I sent you a sketch. Nothing major, but think on it. I’m going to go to bed. You ought to catch some Zs before you land, Ben.”

We say our goodbyes before I take a good look at the image she sent via Skype. It’s of a door, colored purple with Benedict & Door in block letters written in bright orange. At the bottom in Door’s careful script is “designed by Cricket Heidi.”

What I like the most, though, is a sentence written at the very top of the paper that has nothing to do with her new logo. 

_A joint venture between Door Judoc and Benedict Cumberbatch…_


End file.
